Salvation of the Damned (3 page)

She twisted her hair about her fingers, and he stared at the dark silken curl, wishing he could bury himself in her. Only her insistent curiosity and his duty to the others held him in check.

“Then how can you not be immortal?”

He leaned back, trying to distance himself from her so he wouldn’t be so affected by her mere presence—as if that could do him any good now that he’d tasted her skin and felt her flesh. “Like I said, we’re not. All gods have a breaking point. Over the centuries Siphidius became too great a king, wanting to conquer the world and become a god himself. It pissed off the gods, naturally. One doesn’t ever expect one’s creation to become an upstart, even though it happens all the time. So they sent a plague to kill the vampires, and it did kill almost all of them, save Janus.”

Without being aware of what she was doing, she’d leaned in closer to him, her eyes bright and eager, curiosity getting the better of her. He wanted to grab her, but he dared not touch her again. Next time, he’d have no control.

“And it’s come back?”

“Every thousand years, it is the same. Without a remedy, we age our true years in forty-eight hours, turning many to nothing but bone dust—wiping out nearly the entire species, except for those few who remained latent carriers to all their spawn. Only a marginal number of us survive, but the disease still lingers.”

“How awful!”

Her face crumpled and a twinge of anger pierced his heart. Despite all the years, living forever wasn’t as blissful as it seemed to those who craved, yet feared it. Friends and loved ones died away and too soon, in mere decades, a newborn was left alone, with only others of his kind for companionship. Love with a mortal was out of the question, unless one didn’t plan to eat and was willing to suffer the all-too-brief existence of the relationship.

But this was different. Far different. Eva, the soul of his Isabeau reborn, would claim his heart no matter how many millennia separated them. He was destined to be alone, knowing he could never be with the one soul who clearly completed him. “A cost for living as long as we do.”

“But what about sunshine and stakes? Doesn’t that kill you?”

“And I suppose you believe all that nonsense about holy water, crosses and garlic too?”

Her eyes widened.

“I thought so. You must forget what you think you know. Forget the silly fictional accounts you’ve been spoon-fed. We are dangerous, Eva. Much more so than you can possibly imagine. As much as I want you. I—”

“You already have someone.”

“No!”

Her head tipped to the side. “Then what’s stopping you?”

“My family. I need—
they
need you.”

The dark blue ring around her pupils grew wider, taking over the paler blue. “You make it sound like I have the power of life and death. I’m nothing special.”

He placed a hand on her, willing her to understand. “Oh, but you are, in ways you can’t even fathom. We’ve waited a thousand years for you, Eva.”

The rosy color that he loved left, leaving her pale beneath her lightly bronzed skin. “But why?”

“You are the only one who can save us.”

“Me?” Eva laughed, hoping the nervous, strained edge of her forced humor didn’t betray her inner lack of confidence. What if this was what she was meant for? What if she were hoping it was so much, that she was fooling herself into believing anything he said? “I’m an
accountant
. I crunch numbers. I don’t see myself in a crimson cape saving anybody one digit at a time.”

The golden color of his eyes deepened, darkened as he scanned her features. “As much as I would like to simply tell you what you are—” he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and blew it out slowly “—I suppose the only way I can make you understand fully is to show you.”

She didn’t move, but Eva felt herself grow emotionally smaller in defense as tension curled and eddied invisible, but palpable, in the air between them.

She knew instinctively that whatever he was about to show her would change her life. And, as much as she craved a change, she also feared it. Although throwing this sexy-as-hell guy into the mix made it more like two parts craving and one part fear. Remembering the heat of his mouth, her breasts tightened and chafed under the fabric of her gown.

Maybe it was closer to three parts wanting to tear into his clothes and feel every inch of him, and one part anxiety.

The limo rolled to a stop at a driveway flanked by great columns of gray stone and a heavy, elaborately scrolled black wrought-iron gate. Through the tinted glass partition Eva saw the driver roll down his window, but couldn’t make out what he said into the security speaker.

The massive gate opened silently on electric hinges, then the car moved smoothly up the driveway, shrouded from the moonlight by the arching branches of the towering live oaks overhead. The drive snaked in the slightly dappled darkness, past trees thick with hanging moss, and kudzu, which Eva knew overtook everything it could—nature reaching with tenacious fingers to reclaim her own.

She shivered and rubbed her bare arms. Kudzu was nothing like what was happening to her tonight. Raphael wasn’t going to “claim” her. Not against her will anyway.

Had it not all seemed so surreal already, and Raphael such a distraction on every level, Eva would have felt more on edge.

As it was, she was still trying to take it all in, trying desperately to understand. But her mind felt fuzzy and her body tingled, as if she had a buzz even though she’d finished her only drink of the evening hours ago.

The dappled darkness gave way as the limo slid into the bright moonlight where an enormous white plantation-style home glowed in stark relief against the dark trees around it. Eva’s breath stuck in her throat. She had only driven past the gates before, but never seen the house herself, only heard about it and the somewhat reclusive family that owned it.

It was beautiful. Far grander than anything she’d anticipated. She’d suspected Raphael came from wealth by the cut of his clothing and the expensive limo. But clothes and cars could be rented. Eva doubted that a house like this had been rented. Did this place really belong to him? It was clearly a well-loved house with its beautifully maintained gardens, evident even in the glistening light of the moon. This was a home. A home that looked as if it had been in the family for generations.

“Welcome to my home.” Raphael’s voice curled around her senses like smoke. Ignoring the shiver his heated look caused, she stared up at the house narrow-eyed. “If the party is at your home, why aren’t you hosting?” What had he been doing at someone else’s party when he had an event at his own house?

His mouth quirked up in a grin. “My family likes to pretend this is a surprise party, even though I always know when they are going to be here. So I indulge them.” He held out his hand and Eva placed her fingers in his. His hand was cool. Hard. Safe.

Raphael opened his door and Eva slid across the seat.

The glide of his hand against her palm as he helped her out of the limo sent a shock up her arm, straight to her heart, making it thump harder in her chest.

Cool damp air brushed her bare skin, as hand-in-hand he led her up the shallow stone steps and across a covered porch. The front door was closed, but the sound of music and low laughter drifted outside on the crisp, bayou-scented night.

Heart pounding an uneven rhythm, Eva hesitated as Raphael opened the door. “Maybe another time…”

“Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. These are just my family and friends. I promise, they’ll all love you.”

As much as I do
hung in the air, unspoken. Ridiculous, Eva thought, as she reluctantly let him steer her inside. He hadn’t said the words out loud, and she wasn’t telepathic. Wishful thinking of course. And yet—

The longer she was with him, the stronger the pull. Like the tide rushing to shore, she was almost certain she knew this stranger as well as she knew herself. Impossible. Improbable. Crazy.

This attraction she felt for him went far beyond anything she would feel for a casually met stranger. It didn’t make any sense. It was scary. It was, Eva thought as they crossed a vast entry hall, intriguing. Inside, the palatial home was even grander than on the outside. Crystal chandeliers and marble floors, silk-covered walls, antiques and priceless works of art were everywhere. Eva wondered for a moment if perhaps Raphael were part of some minor European royal family she’d never heard of.

The hum of a hundred or more voices talking in low conversation wafted into the hall, sending a skittering sensation running down her nape. There were lots of people here, but she’d yet to see a single soul.

“Would you like me to introduce you?”

As Eva looked around at her surroundings, she bit her lip and nodded, suddenly feeling too insignificant to summon a response. Raphael slid his hand along her arm, twining his fingers in hers, sending another spasm of heat shimmering through to her core.

She began to doubt herself and Raphael’s stories about being a vampire, and all of the vampires being dependent on her for their cure to a plague. It seemed just too fantastical that she would matter that much to anyone, let alone an entire race. No matter how her heart back-flipped when he touched her, clearly there was more going on here than he’d told her.

Men, wealthy men like Raphael, didn’t pick up nobody accountants and bring them home to meet the family. That only happened in fairy tales, and romantic movies. Eva gave herself a mental slap upside the head. Call it what it was. She met a handsome stranger who she was powerfully attracted to and could tell felt the same about her. She’d willingly allowed him to take her home with him. For sex. Wild, hot, fabulous sex. That was the sum total of his reason for bringing her here. Sex. Good, old-fashioned lust. Not love. Never love. Love spelled disaster for Eva. At least that’s what she’d been told by the palm reader. And with Kevin it had proven all too accurate.

Vampires indeed. He could have paid any cosmetic dentist to trick out his incisors like that for effect. How could she have been so blind? Likely, this was some silly party bet with his wealthy buddies, like college fraternities played on each other, seeing who could bring the most pathetic date. Maybe it was some twisted Mardi Gras family tradition.

But all her hesitations came too late. Raphael’s hold on her hand was strong, and she seriously doubted she could pull away, even if she’d wanted to.

The moment they entered the room, the hum of voices in conversation hit an unnatural lull. The sea of faces swam before her. So many. All of them staring at her. But not like the best geek brought to the party. No, and this was somehow worse, they stared at her as if she was the most beautiful sight they had ever seen.

She’d never felt so much attention fixed on her in her life. Somehow, this must be what it felt like when those nightmares of showing up naked at work really came true.

Thousands of candles lit the room, their flickering light reflected in the mirrored walls of the ballroom, but when she glanced at her reflection, there was only her, alone, in the candlelit room, staring at the macabre centerpiece. Rising up in the center of the ballroom, on a golden dais, was a polished mahogany coffin draped with red velvet. Holy crap! What exactly was going on? She could still hear the faint rustle of their movements behind her, even though none of them reflected in the mirrors.

She couldn’t seem to stop herself from moving in for a closer look. And this time, Raphael let her go. Her eyes adjusted to the flickering light of the candles as she crept forward to peek at what lay inside.

A human skeleton of ivory, almost glossy, bones, lay within, but that wasn’t what made her heart stop, then pick up double time. It was the one difference she noticed, the thing that took her by surprise. Beneath the glimmer of candlelight on the polished bone, the skeleton’s teeth were perfect, especially the elongated, pointed fangs.

“You are surprised.” His voice came like a whisper against her skin. Eva pressed back against him, needing the solidness of him touching her, then she tilted her head up, looking into his golden eyes.

“I shouldn’t be. You told me what you were. I just wasn’t sure I believed it.”

His eyes shifted from golden to dark amber. “I was honest about that, but there is something that is left unsaid between us.” The glide of his tender touch against her shoulder made her shudder with need. “If you do this, Eva, there is no guarantee that I can control how the process will work with you.”

She glanced back at the skeleton. “Who is,
was
, this?”

“Siphidius.”

“The first vampire? The one you told me about?”

“Yes. And the first to die from the plague.”

She turned her back on the skeleton, her fingers digging into Raphael’s shirt, clinging to him like a lifeline in a sea of confusion and doubt. “How am I going to make any difference?”

He locked his gaze with hers. “There is a special cleansing ceremony that counteracts the virus.”

“And somehow I’m the inoculation?”

How could he possibly tell her it was more like a sacrifice? “In a manner of speaking.”

We must have her.
Janus’s voice pounded inside Raphael’s head. He blocked it out, refusing to be distracted. “Darling Eva, time is running short. If you do not help us, we will all perish by this time two days from now.”

Her pulsed pounded so thick and loud that it echoed in his head, and her eyes went wide, before she swallowed and blinked.

“What do you need me to do?”

He almost chuckled at the absurdity of it. His explanation would sound very simple, yet complicated his existence on every level. “You climb in the coffin once the ceremony starts and the Siphidius skeleton disappears. Then the transformation for all of us will begin. We reemerge when we are healed and the skeleton reappears when the ceremony is complete.”

“That’s all? Then what’s the big deal?”

Ah. Here came the part that sliced him to the core and ground the stony remains of his heart to dust.

“You die.”

“I—
what?”
You
mean
I become a vampire, right?”

It would be so much easier to let her believe that. He’d done so with Isabeau, watched her fragile human form disappear knowing full well he would never touch her, feel her, smell her scent, again. Yet this time was infinitely worse. Because he knew exactly how torturous every minute of every day would feel without her. He could let Eva go, but not without her consent. Not without her knowing.

“No mortal has ever become a vampire in this way. They have all simply…perished.”

Her shoulders stiffened, and then she looked at him. “I thought you were going to turn me into one of you.”

Raphael’s chest hardened with pain that radiated outward from the region of his heart. “But that is a kind of death. You do not fear death?” Considering the lengths his kind had endured in order to achieve an escape from death, her reaction seemed alien to him.

“I don’t fear the unknown. Honestly, I’ve been dead once already, and it wasn’t that bad. It’s not like I’m in a hurry to go back, but perhaps I’m meant to. All of you will die if I don’t do this, right?”

“We will.” He stared at her, the gold in his eyes dazzling. “How have you died before, Eva?”

Inside her heart swelled with gratitude because he accepted her statement so completely, unlike Kevin had. She glanced again at the bones, then held up her palm and gazed at it, tracing one of the fine lines that spidered across it. “For my twenty-first birthday, my friends took me out to a palm reader who told me that my life would change the world and love was destructive for me. We had a good laugh, went out for drinks, had a good time. On the way home, there was an accident. My friend Kelly was driving and died. When I woke up in the hospital, they said I’d died on the table, then somehow come back.” She closed her hand tightly and gazed at him. A flicker of fear clouded her clear blue eyes.

“That time I was gone, I went somewhere. I’m not sure where. It was all white and a voice told me it wasn’t my time. They were sending me back because I had something important to do. My life was going to change the world. I’ve been waiting to find out how and why ever since. I guess now I know. I’ve known I was meant to do something more important, bigger with my life than being an accountant.” She let out a rattling sigh. “Saving an entire race from extinction is certainly up there with big. Really big.”

He could see her resolve encasing her like a cocoon and was awed by her strength and selflessness. She was the most amazing creature he’d ever met, and inside he was dying all over again at the thought of losing her. “Evaline St. Croix, you are a most unusual woman.”

“There is one thing I’d like in return, though, before I do this, and it’s not a last meal.”

“Anything.”

He could think of a thousand things he desired. A night by a roaring fire with her naked in his arms. An afternoon spent in the heated sand with the lulling roar of the ocean mixing with the soft moans and slick skin. An eternity to kiss her.

“What is it you desire?”

“You.”